Russia has said it will treat arms shipments to Ukraine from Nato countries as “legitimate targets” for military action in a dangerous new escalation of tensions as the United States stepped up arms supply to Ukraine.

Egypt's Ali Farag, the world's number one squash player, used his victory speech at the Optasia Championship yesterday to express his dissatisfaction with Western media coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month, reports Indian news portal NDTV.

Waves of Russian missiles pounded a military training base near Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland, killing 35 people, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday. The strike followed Russian threats to target foreign weapon shipments that are helping Ukrainian fighters defend their country against Russia’s grinding assault.

A US journalist was shot dead and another wounded on Sunday in Irpin, a frontline northwest suburb of Kyiv, medics and witnesses told AFP.

India today announced its decision to temporarily relocate its embassy in Ukraine to Poland as the war between Russia and Ukraine intensified.

Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander V Mantytskiy has slammed a section of Bangladeshi media for what he called “biased approach” in their coverage of the situation in Ukraine and Russia’s actions there.

Australia has welcomed Ukrainians fleeing the war with bipartisan support as its government has promised to expedite student, skilled worker, and tourist visas for them, according to MSN News.

The body of Hadisur Rahman, third engineer of the Bangladeshi ship “Banglar Samriddhi”, who was killed in a rocket attack at a Ukraine port on March 3, is now in Turkey’s Istanbul and is set to reach Dhaka tomorrow afternoon (March 14).

The United Nations will have multiple meetings this week about Russia's war in Ukraine, though it is unclear if these will lead to the adoption of an official text, diplomats said.

Around 13,000 people were evacuated from a number of Ukrainian cities on Saturday, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, almost twice the number who managed to get out the previous day.

Russian forces pounded the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Saturday, shelling its downtown as residents hid in its iconic mosque and elsewhere to avoid the explosions. Fighting also raged in the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, as Russia kept up its bombardment of several resisting cities.

Ukraine accused Russian forces on Saturday of killing seven civilians in an attack on women and children trying to flee fighting near Kyiv, and France said Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown he was not ready to make peace.

Russian forces upped pressure on Kyiv yesterday, pummelling civilian areas in other Ukrainian cities, amid fresh efforts to get aid to the devastated port city of Mariupol.

Most business owners have shut up shop and fled Ukraine’s Mikolaiv, but florist Angela Kalisnik continues to sell tulips and roses just a short drive away from the frontline.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday authorized $200 million in weapons and other assistance for Ukraine, the White House said, as Ukrainian officials said heavy shelling by Russian forces were endangering attempted evacuations.

Ukraine was ready to negotiate to end the war started by Russia more than two weeks ago, but would not surrender or accept any ultimatums, the country's foreign affairs minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday.

As Russian and Ukrainian websites fall victim to cyber attacks and Moscow restricts access to some foreign social media, internet users across both countries have turned to online tools to help circumvent the blocks.

Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said Saturday as fighting also raged on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.

Western sanctions against Russia could cause the International Space Station to crash, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday, calling for the punitive measures to be lifted.

Fighting raged northwest of Kyiv on Saturday, with the bulk of Russian ground forces 25 km (16 miles) from the centre of the Ukrainian capital, while several other cities were encircled and under heavy shelling, the UK Defence Ministry said.